sChmo0kler

I’m trying to wrap my head around being the subject of office gossip. It boggles my mind, really. The ridiculous thing is, I don’t even go to this office now, and was never employed there in the first place. It’s not even in the same city, or country for that matter, as where I am now!

Around two and a half years ago, doing what probably everyone else was also doing, I submitted my CV to this big architectural firm in the UAE, after being alerted that they need “female, junior architects”. A day or so after, somebody called me up for an interview of sorts. He was a Filipino, probably a head architect or CAD manager there. I cannot recall exactly our conversation now, but I’m sure I would’ve asked about the basic important issues like housing, transportation, compensation and such. The following days, they sent me acceptance/confirmation email along with the employment contract for my signature. I didn’t reply and send it back as I found the whole package to be not quite what I had in mind.

No follow-up mails or calls came and I thought that was that. So I went on with other life plans and ended up to where I am right now.

But, just early this evening, a friend buzzed me on YM and told me there’s a “chika” regarding that company. I had to jog my memory until I remembered it. Apparently, a friend of hers who worked there came to know about that application of mine. He heard that some people there were “discussing” that my salary expectation before was too high when I was “teacher lang daw”. HAHAHA! I had to laugh at that one. Really! I may not have been the best of teachers before, but that is just soooo WRONG calling teachers that way.

First of all, how unprofessional was this company that candidate information is divulged to non-HR staff and second, how unethical was that manager/architect who I talked with to ridicule our conversation? I mean, that time, what do I know of living and working abroad, especially in the Middle East? Lastly, just to be on the flip side, what’s the point of even considering on going abroad for work, if not to look for higher pay?

My mistake was probably being too naive to ask questions that I felt needed to be asked. Now, I am just glad I didn’t make the mistake of choosing that office 2 years ago. The company itself might be establisehd and successful but I still might have made the right decision, knowing now how the staff there were acting up before. And the sad part, but come to think of it not so surprising really, is that they may be mostly Filipinos…